It’s been just over a year since Cyber Civil Rights Initiative incorporated as a non-profit and we are finally able to offer a service that victims of nonconsensual pornography (i.e., revenge porn) desperately need: A Helpline*.

The first person I called when I learned my ex-boyfriend created an eBay auction and tried to sell a CD of 88 nude images of me was my therapist. It was after 4pm on a Friday. When she answered her phone, I blurted out the story to her and pleaded for her to help me, to tell me what to do. I was sure she’d talk me through the panic, help me make a plan to deal with this, and stay on the phone with me until I was ready to take the next steps.

She did none of that. Her response wasn’t dismissive; she had just finished up with a client and was getting ready to leave for the weekend. Her tone was firm and gentle. She assured me I was strong enough to handle this. We set an appointment for Monday.

Then I called my mother. She was dismissive. She rushed me off the phone, speaking in code. I understood right away; she didn’t want my father to know what was happening. These things were best handled between my mother and I when she could speak freely.

The night before the auction went live, I contacted the police and explained what was happening–that my ex was threatening to sell a CD of nude images of me. Surely this was illegal, I implored. The officers I spoke with were far from helpful. They were condescending. They were cruelly dismissive.

I don’t fault my therapist or mother for the reaction I received. We had never heard of anyone doing something like that. There had been no discussions of this reprehensible behavior. There was no language to adequately describe what he did. The closest I could think was to call it online harassment and stalking. Without language, without someone to guide, comfort and reassure me, I felt painfully isolated.

I keep that isolated feeling close to the surface every time I interact with a victim in my role as victim advocate for CCRI. I remember what I desperately needed and wanted and strive to be that person for those who reach out to us for support and guidance. Through the process of researching and vetting resources, I put together a reference guide that I would refer to when answering victims’ emails.

As CCRI grew, the demand for services for our victims increased. I offered to put my cobbled-together notes into a more comprehensive training manual for when we were ready to take on new volunteers. But in September, my project took on a new urgency as we began the process to start the CCRI Crisis Helpline.

What I initially thought was going to be a 3 or 4-page document grew into a 45-page manual by the end of the first day of writing. This is why our helpline is so important. Victims finally have access to a resource that brings together the experiences and knowledge of all of CCRI’s advocates. Victims will no longer be dismissed when they make that first call.

The goal of CCRI as we expand our services is to ensure reliable, consistent resources for victims in need. The training manual and launch of the helpline are two more steps towards meeting that goal, a goal that we need your help to reach. Your donations will allow us to keep this helpline up and running, and eventually extend it to victims outside of the US. Every donation answers another call from victims who have nowhere else to go. Donate here and help us end revenge porn!

I have been a victim of revenge porn once and now again I’m being blackmailed by the same person. First, he posted the pictures on tumblr only and with most my face cropped now he’s threatening to post on every porn site even social networks. I’m not willing to give in to his threats but I’mscared as hell. I don’t know his exact location and can’t involve police cause there are no laws against revenge porn in my country. I have no idea what to do next. Somebody help me.

An

I decided to speak up and out after being in hiding for almost 2 yrs.
Thank you for paving the road for me

Scared silent

I found out that pictures of me were posted on a website after I left my job. Information was told around the place I worked. I am no longer welcomed there and “embarrassed them”. I never even knew anyone was taking pictures or videos of me. Still, I am slut shamed. I have decided that I will no longer be a victim but will help in any way that I can to help other women who have been shamed into silence. My past sexual history was even brought up. I am happy that my state is in the process of passing a revenge porn law. How are people prosecuted who hide cameras in your house?

Jess

The same thing happened to me. My coworkers were putting shit in my food.

Asham

Scared Silent,

My story is similar to yours. I was recorded, but not in my house…I was at his house. He would then sell the tapes (yes, tapes; he made copies) on the streets for 5.00!! I would LOVE to have him prosecuted.

I’ve had a sexually physical body hacker stalking me for the last six years off and on. It really sucks when you can’t feel safe in the privacy of your own home because someone has the ability to touch you in your private parts without your consent and without identifying themselves. It pretty much ruins your life too because people don’t understand that its possible to body hack someone literally and physically but invisibly so they think I’m insane and that really hurts to be ignored or ridiculed for telling the truth. I’ve had to watch chauvinist misogynists talk like I wasn’t worthy of conversation and only deserved silent sexual harassment or seen lies and deception from every angle to try to justify this treatment to keep me shut up. They tried to guilt trip me like it was affection. They posted they were going to punish me for being ungrateful. They tried to make me think the disrespect was a fair trade off for getting to feel them violate the sanctity of my body. They tried to make it out like it was famous people doing it for entertainment thinking I’d be a groupie. They tried to make it out like I was a whore. They tried to make it out like I was too uptight and self righteous. They tried to make me feel nasty about myself as a person. They tried to make it out like it was a game within a game and I was the prize. They tried to make it out like stalking me in real life and trying to infect me (there are sexual predator stalkers who want to try to give women stds in real life. That is the only thing Ive ever seen worse than a rapist) was doing me a favor so they would stop stalking me or keep me from being a prostitute. And a bunch of other lies, none of which made sense and weren’t true because I was married with nerve damage in my brain so I stayed at home alone. So yeah. Six years of the silent treatment over a span of 12,000 miles, 7 different homes and 6 different computers. But whenever I try to contact people to stop it or so that others aren’t sexually manipulated and taken advantage of I get ignored by the media, my friends and family think Im nuts because they don’t understand, and I haven’t gone to the police because walking in and telling them an invisible hacker sexually molests me often would get me laughed at and taken for a psych check. It has been a miserable six years. If someone can take away years of my life when I’m already I’ll with an inhibited life, then why do people ignore me when I try to stop this person from peeping tom-like touching me? The hackers wanted me to feel invisible and worthless and hopeless and cut off from the rest of the world and they did but I’m too strong as a person to be silenced by someone who blatantly disrespect my body and has over 600 times by now. I’ve watched whisper hackers intimidate me to try to keep me quiet. I’ve watched them take literally every person they could find on my social media to try to convince me that the person was them so I’d falsely believe it was someone I knew .

lala

In no way whatsoever do I feel shamed or slut shamed. I was always the victim. People treated me like less than nothing because of someone stalking me who I was running away from. As if I was in the wrong or I should be ostracized or excluded or out casted or ignored like I did something wrong when I didn’t. I was just being silently driven insane by a cruel malicious pranker/predator. Now I sit here each day and keep trying to let the truth be known so these sort of people don’t use body feeling hacks to sexually manipulate, abuse or rape easy targets like young girls. Because I know it would be easy to do so. Also I want justice for being stalked by people I didn’t know who were trying to use sexual humiliation to abuse me, as a girl running away from a sexual stalker. Victimizing the victim and then writing about it in the media because someone thinks its intimidating or asserting authority or dominance over another is just too much wrong to keep me quiet.

My ex and I were together for 6 years. During that time I endured escalating abuse. I made the decision to leave him. I had not realized that private pictures I allowed him to take of me because I loved and trusted him would be used against me when I left him as a means to attempt to destroy me. He posted them under my real name on more than 30 sites, sex date sites, my date of birth, drivers license and soc security number right along with this information. He has endangered me and my children’s one of which we share in common. I have an order for protection. Set to expire August 2015. He admitted in legal documents during the custody hearing for our daughter to posting it because he was “angry” I left. It has been two years since and I’m still haunted and have this hanging over my head. I will be working with my state representative on a revenge porn bill they want to work on. I will stand and face this head up. No matter where the chips fall. I will not be robbed any longer of my dignity- I didn’t give it away- it was attempted to be taken from me from a cruel person who is incapable of dealing with his own issues he has to bully and abuse others. What I did with him was out of love and in our relationship. I allowed him to take my picture. I never in a million years imagined it would wind up online. Ladies… Keep your heads up! This was done to you! It’s abuse! You are not to be blamed!

My ex is blackmailing me constantly that he’ll leak my nudes. I am so damn worried. He wants a sex tape and he said after that he won’t leak the pics. I agreed to him cause that was the only way I could stop him. I have to send it by today. I can’t take help from anyone because I live in Qatar and he lives in England. I can’t invovle cops at all. What should I do? I can’t stop crying. I know I shouldn’t have sent the pics ik first place. But please I need help?

End Revenge Porn

Hi Z.,

Please reach out to one of our victim advocates here. They will be able to provide you with the best guidance possible.

Best,
Holly

Random Quote

“Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.”

— Mahatma Gandhi

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What is ‘Revenge Porn’?

The term 'revenge porn,' though frequently used, is somewhat misleading. Many perpetrators are not motivated by revenge or by any personal feelings toward the victim. A more accurate term is nonconsensual pornography (NCP), defined as the distribution of sexually graphic images of individuals without their consent.